Events

Wayward Seed Farm Needs Your Help

As you might have guessed, the constant storms and rainshowers have been making this season a bit difficult for farmers. Because they do not use pesticides, Wayward Seed Farm is having a difficult time with the invasion of weeds. So far, this weekend looks to be hot and sunny. If you are free to help, they would appreciate as much help as possible with weed pulling. Don’t forget a wide brimmed hat and sunscreen! The farm is located near Marysville. The full email with details can be found after the jump.

Hello All!

As you all know, the weather of late has been particularly wet, muggy and down right hot! I felt sorry for myself when I came home sweaty and soggy late tonight until I read the following email from one of our farmer friends who supplies The Greener Grocer with great local produce:

“We are so sorry to come to you with such unfortunate news. As members of a CSA program, you share in both the risk and the reward of a local farm. Fortunately for both our farm and our members, we’ve been blessed with abundance and reward, and experienced very little risk. This season, however, has not been as kind as seasons’ past. For the first time in the history of our CSA program, we need to suspend the delivery of vegetable shares.

As you all know, we have been dealing with wet fields and small floods for the past several weeks. The rain we’ve received over the last few days–especially last night–has taken the fields from muck to flood. Over the last two weeks, in total, the farm has received more than 20 inches of rain. We are now in a standing water situation that is, at the very least, delaying the crops and at the worst, threatening their existence.

Not only is the water a source of concern, but also the sudden invasion of vast amounts of weeds. Because we are a farm that refuses to use pesticides, we often harvest the vegetables through the weeds. While the pervasiveness of weeds is often a joke among those of us in the fields, the continuous rain has given the weeds the upper hand and they are now a second major threat to the crops. We are furiously hand weeding the fields in every hour of light we have–and we need your help. If you are able to offer any amount of your time, at any time this week, to help us clear the fields we would be so grateful. Please call Jaime at (937) 644-0786 or (614) 327-0102 if you are ready and willing to help.

So what does this mean to our shareholders? These fields are yours as much as they are ours, and it’s our promise to you that we will do everything possible to get vegetable shares up and running as quickly as we can. Quality and service are of the utmost importance to us, and we will work tirelessly until we are able to once again resume delivery of vegetables to our members. We would rather suspend shares in the short term than give you anything that does not meet our standards of cleanliness and quality. We will still be delivering fruit, milk and coffee shares this week, so please continue to pick up those shares as usual. We are taking this situation day by day, but for the week of June 15th (today) through Monday, June 21st, we will not be able to deliver vegetable shares. If you are a vegetable-only member, there is no need to pick up this week at your location, unless you’d like to speak with us personally. If so, we’ll be there.

This current situation in no way means that the entire season’s harvest is at risk. At worst, we are hoping this is simply a very short term scenario that will turn around with the sun and dryness we so desperately need. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this difficult situation, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. We will be sharing this information and updates online as well as via email. We will always email you, and we will also offer updates via our blog A Well Fed Seed, Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned–we will share some pictures of the farm as well as a volunteer schedule very soon.

With gratitude,

Jaime Moore & Adam Welly”
jaime@waywardseed.com

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Anne Evans is the Co-Founder and Director of Operations for The Metropreneur and Columbus Underground. Her regular columns are At Home, focused on living in urban areas and historic homes, At Work, focused on working in urban areas and creative spaces, and Mega Weekend, plus whatever other Columbus stories there are that need to be told! Anne began the Historical Dinner Club in October 2013, an event benefiting the Columbus Historical Society. She also advocates for Columbus City Schools and actively works to improve the elementary school at Hubbard Avenue. Want to chat about any of these things? Send me an email!

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This makes me wonder, should I drive all the way out to Marysville and back to help out. Perhaps I can carpool.

meltsintowonder

I encourage you to help if you’re able. Adam and Jaime have been staples in our community, through general community involvement and the push behind some of the new farmers markets. This is also a great way to see the source of local foods firsthand and what’s involved with sustainable farming. Most of what’s grown in Ohio doesn’t even get consumed in Ohio so hats off to local farmers like Wayward Seed and their involvement in our area.

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Anne Evans is the Co-Founder and Director of Operations for The Metropreneur and Columbus Underground. Her regular columns are At Home, focused on living in urban areas and historic homes, At Work, focused on working in urban areas and creative spaces, and Mega Weekend, plus whatever other Columbus stories there are that need to be told! Anne began the Historical Dinner Club in October 2013, an event benefiting the Columbus Historical Society. She also advocates for Columbus City Schools and actively works to improve the elementary school at Hubbard Avenue. Want to chat about any of these things? Send me an email!